People covered with debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers *Courtesy of AP

September 11, 2001 – It has been 13 years since close to 3,000 people were murdered. There are some who say we should just move ahead and let it go. Thank God there has not been another terrorist attack of that magnitude. Yes, we had the bombing in the 2013 Boston Marathon, which was committed by 2 deranged terrorists. This caused fatalities, severe injuries to some spectators and some participants. What is so scary now is that we have several Americans who proudly boast on social medias that they want to destroy the United States. They have gone overseas to join terrorist groups to train to accomplish this goal. We need to wake up and see how beheading of American journalists by these terrorist groups could be a small taste for something bigger to come. I hope and pray this doesn’t happen.

The Freedom Tower

Like I said earlier, we have become very lax because we haven’t had a large loss of life due to terrorist attacks on American Soil since September 11, 2001. We have to thank our special units overseas and in the United States (This includes our local police, CIA, FBI, and especially our military) who were able to thwart potential terrorist acts.

There is a saying that Big Brother is watching us and sometimes too closely. Thank God that we do have that system when it came to saving lives. On September 11, 2001 we all became ONE PEOPLE looking after each other. Everyone is fond of saying, “We are such a diverse country.”  But on that day there was no diversity. In last year’s editorial, I remember mentioning seeing all of the people running in the smoke, fumes and dust near the twin towers on 9/11/01. They were all the same color (grey) which was the dust, soot and debris reigning from the sky covering them from head to toe. You saw people helping those who have fallen, picking each other up, running away from the destruction – not for one moment did anyone ask what nationality, religion (or not), ethnicity or political affiliation you were. All you saw were people holding each other’s hands and running.

Do we have to have another tragedy of this scope to unite us as one people? We are always having diversity training how we are so different from each other. I think it’s about time, we need a festival entitled: “Unity Day.”

Each individual can choose to remember or ignore September 11, 2001 anniversaries. I am not here to put anyone down if they choose to acknowledge 9-11-01 or not. I didn’t know anyone personally who died that day or anybody who had someone who perished that day. All I know is that it was a very hard wake up call – one that we never expected.

Although the twin towers were destroyed on 9-11-01, there is now a 9-11-01 Memorial and a Freedom Tower built on Ground Zero. The terrorists may have stopped the world on that day, but one thing they never will do is break AMERICA’S SPIRIT AND DETERMINATION. This you can count on.     C.M.